To anyone who has watched a couple in a restaurant texting other people it will come as little surprise. But almost half the average person's day is now spent watching television or using mobile phones, computers and other communications devices, official figures show. The average Briton spends 45 per cent of their waking hours using some sort of technology, the media regulator Ofcom found, in the first research to track exactly how long consumers spend on various media. Listening to the radio, viewing television, surfing the web or communicating using other gadgets at work and at home all contribute to the total. Rising use of "smartphones" such as iPhones, which allow their owners to access the internet while on the move, and social networking websites including Facebook are partly responsible for the high figure. But traditional media such as television remain a central part of daily life, particularly in the evening, Ofcom's annual Communications Market Report found.

Everyone knows that Oracle is suing Google over claims that Google used Sun's Java technology without appropriate licenses in the Android mobile OS. Now that Oracle owns Sun's technology, it wants to be paid for those licenses. Google claims Android does not use actual Java intellectual property and that the claims are baseless. That's all fine, the stuff of usual Silicon Valley licensing battles. But what's not fine is what's in the small print of Oracle's actual lawsuit. What Oracle is saying and doing should scare everyone. For example, one of Oracle's attorneys is David Boies. We know that name from the recent action that overturned the gay marriage ban in California and from the old DOJ antitrust actions against Microsoft. He also advised the Recording Industry Association of America in its file-sharing case against Napster and represented former vice president Al Gore in the disputed 2004 U.S. election results. Nobody hires David Boies to litigate unless they are serious.

Knight and Day star Cameron Diaz has been named as the most dangerous celebrity in cyber space. McAfee's fourth annual most dangerous celebrities report found that the actress results in a one in ten chance of landing on a risky site, with Pretty Woman Julia Roberts second and The A Team actress Jessica Biel third. With cyber criminals often using the names of popular celebrities to lure people to sites that are actually laden with malicious software, anyone looking for the latest videos or pictures could end up with a malware-ridden computer instead of just trendy content. Research found that anyone searching for ‘Cameron Diaz' along with ‘downloads', ‘screen savers', ‘wallpaper', ‘photos' and ‘videos' are at risk of running into online threats. The rest of the top ten is made up of actors such as Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise and Anna Paquin and models such as Gisele Bündchen, Adriana Lima and Heidi Klum.

Facebook Places is a new application for mobile phones that enables Facebook users to alert their friends to their current location. Although the service is currently only available in the US, Facebook said it will be rolling out the tool to other countries in the coming months. It enables people to provide a real-time update of where they are and what they’re doing when they’re on the move. It means people can tell their friends about a cool restaurant or a film that’s worth going to see, or even a good spot for a picnic. Facebook believes Places will also enable its users to take advantage of unexpected coincidences – such as discovering that they are at the same concert as their friends. Users can “check in” when they arrive at a location, just as in rival service Foursquare, and see whether any of their friends are nearby. When a Facebook user checks in to a location, an update will automatically be published to their friends’ News Feeds.

Intel has agreed to buy the security software firm McAfee for $7.68bn (£4.9bn). The microprocessor giant, which controls more than 70% of the global market for microchips, will pay $48 for each share of McAfee, representing a 60% premium to Wednesday's closing price. A spokesperson for Intel said the deal highlights "that security is now a fundamental component of online computing". Paul Otellini, president and chief executive of Intel, added: "With the rapid expansion of growth across a vast array of internet-connected devices, more and more of the elements of our lives have moved online. In the past, energy-efficient performance and connectivity have defined computing requirements. Looking forward, security will join those as a third pillar of what people demand from all computing experiences." The deal has been unanimously approved by both companies' boards of directors, though still requires approval from McAfee shareholders and clearance from regulators.

We've seen increasing moves by the software industry over the past few weeks to solve one of its oldest dilemmas: vulnerability disclosure. Microsoft changed its policy on disclosure last month, and research firm TippingPoint told manufacturers recently that it is setting asix-month time limitbetween alerting them to a flaw and disclosing the information to its customers. There are growing signs that the industry is getting serious about sorting out its patching protocols. "It amazes me that a dozen years down the line we're still talking about this," Dan Holden, director of security research at TippingPoint, toldV3.co.uk "Some of the arguments are pure semantics. We need to be mature about our responsibilities. The threat landscape has changed dramatically, and we're up against a much larger beast." Holden explained that the tension between researchers and software manufacturers is largely economic. Vendors are not keen to have their problems exposed, but research firms have clients to protect and need to keep them informed.

BlackBerry manufacturer Research in Motion (RIM) is rumoured to be on the hunt for a mobile advertising network to buy, in order to keep pace with its competitors. According to an anonymous source, RIM has held potential acquisition talks with mobile ad network Millennial Media, The Wall Street Journal reported. However, the talks have reportedly ground to a halt over the value of Millennial Media, which offers ads on a network of its own mobile websites plus brokers ad sales for other networks too. The company is believed to be after a sum between $400m and $500m, after its rivals AdMob and Quattro Wireless were acquired by Google and Apple respectively for hefty sums of money. However, analysts warn RIM must move quickly to stand a chance of competing in the wireless ad industry, with both Google and Apple jostling for control. RIM is already lagging behind growth expectations and has just released a new operating system BlackBerry 6, for its handsets in a bid to compete with increasingly popular Android and Apple smartphones.

Hexus 

South Korea has blocked access to the official North Korea Twitter account, a matter of days after the secretive state started posting messages. North Korea's newest channel of communication has amassed more than 8,500 followers since its first post a week ago, but authorities in South Korea have moved quickly against it. A statement by South Korea's Communication Standards Commission said the account was classified as containing "illegal information" – "contents that praises, promotes and glorifies" North Korea – and is banned under the country's national security law. Han Myung-ho, a commission official, said: "We decided to act immediately, after having considered the unique nature of social networking services like Twitter, where specific information can be dispersed to thousands in a short period of time."

City of London Police made the arrests on Thursday in connection with "an elaborate and expansive fraud" involving premium rate numbers, the police force said in a statement. "Today we have struck at the very heart of a complex criminal network that has been targeting the telecommunications industry to steal millions of pounds," said Detective Superintendent Bob Wishart, from the City of London Police, in the statement. "Our investigation found a crime gathering momentum. Each month more SIM cards were being used to make more phone calls to premium rate lines at more expense to the network provider." The gang allegedly used fake identities to get hold of handsets on contract with O2. A police spokesman told ZDNet UK on Friday that the gang took high value handsets, including iPhones, on subsidised contracts, which meant the gang didn't pay for the handsets. A member or members of the gang then allegedly took the SIM cards from the phones, and arranged for the SIM cards to be put in automatic dialling machines abroad, said the spokesman. The machines phoned premium rate numbers which the gang had set up, predominantly in Asia, on phone lines that charged up to £10 per minute.

The new tablet would be launched on 26 November in the US, which is coincidentally Black Friday, the busiest shopping electronics shopping day of the year. And it's not too much of a stretch to think Google would be launching its first Google Chrome tablet internationally at the same time, as it looks to prove its new OS can rival Apple and Microsoft in the same space. The Download Squad is citing a 'source' stating that Verizon will be offering the tablet on a tariff in the US, meaning it could be free with a two year deal. If the same was true in the UK, then it would mean a whole new tablet-purchase model, as the iPad was sold as a separate device to the data deals from networks. HTC's involvement is no surprise either, seeing as it's been involved since day one in building Android with Google and created the G1 and Nexus One – plus the Taiwanese firm has been rumoured to be creating its own tablet, possibly named the WonderSlab. We've yet to see any specs or a definitive UK release date on a prospective device, but we know Google's Chrome OS has inbuilt accelerometer support, so it seems nailed on a tablet isn't too far away